Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Quotes of the Morning: Dear John

“As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation.Some Sunni males have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.” -New York Times, November 29, 2005

“American officials, who are overseeing the training of the Iraqi Army and the police, acknowledge that police officers and Iraqi soldiers, and the militias with which they are associated, may indeed be carrying out killings and abductions in Sunni communities, without direct American knowledge.” -New York Times, November 29, 2005

“Wow.. Torture, people ‘vanishing’ and military death squads.. Why does this sound familiar? Let’s look in on the man who was our ambassador to Iraq up until April of this year (when he was, of course, promoted), John Negroponte.” -Skippy

“Negroponte's nomination for the U.N. post was confirmed by the Senate in September 2001, but that confirmation didn't come easy. It was delayed a half-year mostly because of criticism of his record as the U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. In Honduras, Negroponte played a prominent role in assisting the Contras in Nicaragua in their war with the left-wing Sandinista government, which was aligned with Cuba and the Soviet Union. For weeks before his Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Negroponte was questioned by staff members on whether he had acquiesced to human rights abuses by a Honduran death squad funded and partly trained by the Central Intelligence Agency.” -Associated Press, April 20, 2004

“Intelligence Battalion 3-16 was also created in the early 1980s with the help of the CIA. Together with the DNI, Battalion 3-16 is blamed for the repression, capture, interrogation and disappearance of about 180 people, generally popular movement leaders.” -U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Honduras, October 14, 1998

“Battalion 3-16 counter-terrorist tactics included torture, rape, assassination against persons thought to be involved in support of Salvadoran guerrillas or the Honduran leftist movement. Information available to the United States Government in the 1980s indicated that named individuals were abducted and killed by Battalion 3-16 and the FUSEP Special Unit.” -CIA Working Group Stipulations, September 13, 2001

"I'm pleased to announce my decision to nominate Ambassador John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence . . . John brings a unique set of skills to these challenges." -George ‘Dubya’ Bush, February 17, 2005 “There are also a few similarities in the ignorance of the U.S. government. Apparently we just never notice that kind of problem.” -Skippy

"I think it is important to stress there was no effort on the part of myself or others serving the U.S. Government at the time to stifle reporting about human rights in Honduras, to cover up any credible evidence of human rights abuses which came to our attention, or to misrepresent the general picture with respect to the human rights situation in the country." -John Negroponte, September 13, 2001 “Ah yes, Iraq. Bringing together all of the things we never learned in Vietnam, the Honduras and a hundred other dirty CIA operations Something for everyone.” -Skippy